).

BENTHAM, GEORGE, botanist, born near Plymouth, nephew of Jeremy and
editor of his works, besides a writer on botany (1800-1884).

BENTHAM, JEREMY, a writer on jurisprudence and ethics, born in
London; bred to the legal profession, but never practised it; spent his
life in the study of the theory of law and government, his leading
principle on both these subjects being utilitarianism, or what is called
the greatest happiness principle, as the advocate of which he is chiefly
remembered; a principle against which Carlyle never ceased to protest as
a philosophy of man's life, but which he hailed as a sign that the crisis
which must precede the regeneration of the world was come; a lower
estimate, he thought, man could not form of his soul than as "a dead
balance for weighing hay and thistles, pains and pleasures, &c.," an
estimate of man's soul which he thinks mankind will, when it wakes up
again to a sense of itself, be sure to resent and repudiate (1748-1832).

BENTINCK, LORD GEORGE, statesman and sportsman, a member of the
Portland family; entered Parliament as a Whig, turned Conservative on the
passing of the Reform Bill of 1832; served under Sir Robert Peel; assumed
the leadership of the party as a Protectionist when Sir Robert Peel
became a Free-trader, towards whom he conceived a strong personal
animosity; died suddenly; the memory of him owes something to the memoir
of his life by Lord Beaconsfield (1802-1848).

BENTINCK, LORD WILLIAM HENRY CAVENDISH, Indian statesman, governor
of Madras in 1806, but recalled for an error which led to the mutiny at
Vellore; but was in 1827 appointed governor-general of India, which he
governed wisely, abolishing many evils, such as Thuggism and Suttee, and
effecting many beneficent reforms. Macaulay held office under him. He
returned to England in 1835, became member for Glasgow in 1837, and died
before he made any mark on home politics (1774-1839).

BENTINCK, WILLIAM, a distinguished statesman, first Earl of
Portland, born in Holland; a favourite, friend, and adviser of William
III., whom he accompanied to England, and who bestowed on him for his
services great honours and large domains, which provoked ill-will against
him; retired to Holland, after the king died in his arms, but returned
afterwards (1648-1709).

BENTIVOGLIO, an Italian family of princely rank, long supreme in
Bologna; B., Guido, cardinal, though a disciple of Galileo, was one of
the Inquisito